Trends in air pollutants and health impacts in three Swedish cities over the past three decades

Olstrup, Henrik; Forsberg, Bertil; Orru, Hans; Spanne, Mårten; Nguyen, Hung; Molnár, Peter; Johansson, Christer

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15705-2018

Articles | Volume 18, issue 21

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15705-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-15705-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 21

Research article

|

01 Nov 2018

Research article |

| 01 Nov 2018

Trends in air pollutants and health impacts in three Swedish cities over the past three decades

Henrik Olstrup, Bertil Forsberg, Hans Orru, Mårten Spanne, Hung Nguyen, Peter Molnár, and Christer Johansson

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Final revised paper (published on 01 Nov 2018)
Preprint (discussion started on 10 Apr 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review', Ebba Malmqvist, 11 Apr 2018
- AC1: 'Answers to reviewer 2', Henrik Olstrup, 11 Apr 2018
RC2: 'Review Comments', Anonymous Referee #3, 10 Aug 2018
- AC2: 'Answers to Reviewer 3', Henrik Olstrup, 20 Sep 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Henrik Olstrup on behalf of the Authors (07 Sep 2018)

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (19 Sep 2018) by Nikolaos Mihalopoulos

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (24 Sep 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Revised Manuscript ACP-2018-7
General comments
The authors have addressed all raised issues and have substantially expanded the discussion in their manuscript, which now I consider much improved. A few final points to correct before proceeding with publication.

Specific comments
Figures 2-4: Maybe you could specify that the monthly average values are after deseasonalization.
Page 17, line 19: Check parentheses in the Johansson citation.
Page 17, line 23: …trend diminishes…
Section 4.1: A reasonable answer has been provided in the response, regarding different weekday-weekend variability between NOx and PM10. See if you can incorporate this along with the references in the manuscript.
Page 18, line 10: Replace “photochemistry” with “ozone cycle”.
Page 18, line 20: Replace “perfect” with “pronounced”.
Page 20, line 25: The argument regarding passive vs. active sampling is fair. However, when the authors claim that the ESCAPE field campaigns were of limited extent or even inconsistent, the context has to be explained. I presume that they refer to the infrequent sampling. However, these data have been adjusted to annual means following a specific methodology. They should bear in mind that the same schedule was followed for PM sampling as well, that provided the PM10 RR that they have used in this study. I suggest to change the wording here.
Page 21, line 16: Replace “accuracy” with “suitability”.
Page 23, line 10: …sectoral…
Page 24, line 16: “…where NO has the capability of scavenging free oxygen atoms wherein NO2 is formed..”. Rewrite this as: “..where NO oxidizes to NO2..” or omit the sentence. The titration reaction is between NO and O3 to form NO2.
Figure A1-A4: Please also correct separators for the axis values.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (24 Sep 2018) by Nikolaos Mihalopoulos

AR by Henrik Olstrup on behalf of the Authors (26 Sep 2018) Author's response

ED: Publish as is (06 Oct 2018) by Nikolaos Mihalopoulos

AR by Henrik Olstrup on behalf of the Authors (11 Oct 2018)

Short summary

This article analyzes the health effects caused by changes in air pollution concentrations during the period of 1990–2015 in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö: the three largest cities in Sweden. The air pollutants that have been measured and analyzed are NO_x, NO₂, O₃, and PM₁₀. NO_x and NO₂ exhibit decreasing trends during this period, with beneficial effects on public health. An overall conclusion is that public health can largely benefit from reduced air pollution levels.